


Grace and Glory

by MirrorMystic



Series: Among Eagles [13]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Action, F/F, Martial Arts, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2020-09-01 03:08:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20251177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirrorMystic/pseuds/MirrorMystic
Summary: Two young women rise against a tyrant. One out of anger. The other, out of love.A tale from the Corinth Resistance, in the days before the Sparrow flew.





	Grace and Glory

**Author's Note:**

> This, like Firebrand, is an interlude from the war for Corinth. This is an old piece, touched up and posted for posterity. Partly to introduce Jei, Aspect of Dogma. Mostly just because I had just watched Ip Man and *really* wanted to write a fight scene. I wonder if the inspiration is obvious. :P
> 
> I hope you all enjoy the read!

~*~

_“You were on Corinth during the invasion?” She asked somberly, eyes glinting in the lamplight. She absent-mindedly ran her fingers through the hair of the young woman dozing off beside her._

_“Lin was,” Alys said from the opposite bunk. “I arrived as part of the Liberation Fleet. My squad…” Alys swallowed hard, cringing at the memory. “…we were tasked with retaking the planet.”_

_The woman nodded gravely. Alys studied her carefully. She looked so young- so young, but with eyes that had seen enough war to last a lifetime. Not unlike herself, she supposed._

_“You fought with the Resistance, then?” Alys asked quietly. The woman shook her head._

_“No. Not with the Resistance,” She paused. Bit her lip. “…But yes. I did fight. In a way.”_

~*~

_In the year 3263, Malice came to the planet Corinth. A rift through reality tore itself open in the skies above Corinth, and the forces of the Enemy poured through. Malice descended upon the planet without warning and without mercy. Corinth was a humble agri-world with minimal military presence. Its defenders, stretched thin to begin with, didn’t stand a chance._

_Formal opposition to Malice’s forces ceased after only three weeks. Informal opposition, however, continued for the entirety of the occupation- for over six hundred “Days of Pain”, until The Order launched their campaign to liberate the planet in late 3265._

_The Corinth Resistance’s underground war against the Enemy stretched thin materiel and personnel, and is credited with straining the forces of Malice to their breaking point. When The Order’s liberation fleet arrived and began to prosecute their campaign against the Enemy in earnest, the planet was retaken in only six weeks- a feat that would surely have taken months or even years if not for the Resistance’s efforts in undermining the occupation forces._

_Countless others, however, could not directly oppose the occupation. For six hundred days, the majority of Corinth’s citizenry were not engaged in a shadow-war for the fate of their planet. They had to get up and go to work under foul, eldritch masters in order to scrape a living. Exhausted, beaten, driven into the dust, and humiliated for the amusement of their otherworldly captors…_

_But even here, however faint, the spirit of resistance remained._

~*~

“Ves paht!”

The once-human soldier barked at her, flecking her face with spittle. Slowly, defiantly, she raised a hand and wiped her cheek with her sleeve. The trooper growled, repeating himself.

“Ves paht, makran!”

She pressed her lips into a line.

“I don’t…” She began, quietly. “…understand you.”

The trooper raised a gloved hand, poking at the cancerous growths ringing his neck. He found a device tied tightly against his throat with a leather cord and flipped a switch. He barked out his foul, daemon language, the transmitter around his throat echoing him in a tinny electronic voice.

“What is your name?” He demanded.

“Glory,” She said, fixing her gaze straight ahead. “I don’t have another one.”

“Residence?”

“Hawk’s Landing,” Glory said, her voice cold as ice. “Mission district.”

“What is your business here?”

“I was on my way to the Feeding House, sir.”

The trooper glowered at the unmasked pride and contempt in her voice. He made a show of patting the muzzle of his rifle.

“Display your consent!” He barked.

For a split second, Glory saw herself reach out and grab the trooper by his rifle strap, pull him forward, and hit him with a flurry of punches- sternum, throat, nose, throat, five, six, seven-

She shook the thought from her mind. She rolled up her sleeve and showed the trooper the brand she wore on her arm. She made a fist, and the daemonic sigil writhed like a worm beneath her skin.

“May I proceed, sir?” She asked.

The trooper scrutinized the mark, before lifting his face and glowering at her. He jutted his chin down the road.

“Go on, then,” He grumbled, and Glory went on her way.

Glory stood in line in the Hawk’s Landing town square, muttering mantras under her breath. In her mind’s eye, she found solace and warmth under a radiant golden sky. But too soon, the vision is snatched away- shoved aside by the scent of sulfur and cooking fat, and a sky still stained acid yellow after the planetary bombardment months and months ago.

There was a daemon standing at the counter ahead. It was a rake-thin creature, a spider-like form on humanoid legs. Eight thin arms, coated in a bone-white carapace, jutted out from its torso like the spokes of a wheel. Black rags hung from its spindly frame like a funeral gown. It had no eyes, no nose, no ears, yet somehow, somehow it always felt like it was staring into your very soul.

Her neighbors in line bowed their heads in deference to the abomination, whimpering under its gaze. But not Glory. Glory stood tall and faced it, unbowed, unbroken. The daemon’s mandibles flexed in what might have been amusement.

Glory reached into her pack and pulled out a pair of thermoses. She unscrewed the caps and set them on the counter.

“Token?” The horror belched out the word with a mouth not made to say it. The crowd flinched at the unearthly voice.

Glory fixed her gaze upon the daemon’s eyeless face, its twitching mandibles, its eight triple-jointed arms, the ceramic sheen of its bone-white carapace. She felt a fire welling up in her core, a fire that filled her very being with the utmost hatred. In her mind, she saw herself strike a series of points in the creature’s chest- eight points, like a compass, drawing a holy sign in welts upon its flesh, destroying this wretched creature in a flash of golden light.

Glory took a sharp breath. Two uneven bits of sloppily-cut metal hit the counter with dull thunks. It took her a moment to remember that she was the one who tossed them there.

The daemon ladled broth into each canister and belched out “Next!” in its horrid, chittering voice. Glory screwed each thermos shut and started making her way back home, muttering mantras along the way.

~*~

Glory stepped inside the tenement house she was squatting in, carefully picking her way around the rubble. An explosion had blasted the door off its hinges, so now the doorframe simply lay empty.

“Grace?” She called out. There was only the sound of loud wooden smacks, and the distant, thumping march of occupation troops.

“Grace, I’m home!”

Glory shrugged her pack off her shoulders and set it down on the floor, flopping down onto a peeling foam sofa. She leaned back and let out a long, weary sigh, combing her fingers through her hair. The simmering hatred in her veins had boiled away, leaving a ragged, defiant pride in its stead.

Glory pulled a defunct dataslate off the coffee table, peering at her reflection in its inert screen. Weary, dirty. But still sharp, stubborn, proud.

Pride. That was all she had left, now that the Enemy had taken everything else. Pride. Faith. And her.

“Glory!”

Glory tossed the slate aside, jumping to her feet. A girl appeared in the doorway, bright-eyed and grinning. She ran inside and practically threw herself into Glory’s arms. Glory caught her and spun her around, laughing all the while.

“Welcome home,” Grace whispered, pressing her forehead against Glory’s.

“Don’t be so dramatic. I was only gone for a few hours,” Glory smiled for a moment, before wrinkling her nose. “…You smell like a locker room.”

“Yeah? Well, you smell like a daemon,” Grace teased.

The sudden intensity of Glory’s glare made Grace back away, laughing nervously.

“…I’m just… joking, alright? Geez,” Grace said, flopping down on the couch.

“It’s not something to joke about,” Glory said, deathly serious, joining Grace on the couch.

“Sorry,” Grace mumbled.

Glory exhaled. “…No. I’m sorry. Here, eat.”

Grace took the offered thermos and unscrewed it, taking a sip of soup. Glory turned, leaning her chin on her hand. Outside, in the yard, was the wooden training dummy Master Yi loaned them a few years ago. That is, until…

Glory flinched at the memory, lips curling into a frown. She felt Grace’s hand on her knee, turned and saw the instant concern in her eyes. She smiled in silent gratitude, her hand closing over Grace’s.

“You’re practicing again?” Glory asked. Grace nodded. “Why?”

“Why else? To beat the master, of course,” Grace smirked.

“In your dreams,” Glory muttered. “…You’ll tire yourself out, all that exercise. You’ll just make yourself hungry.”

“You shouldn’t have to worry about us going hungry,” Grace said softly, hanging her head. Glory squeezed her hand.

“I’m older than you,” Glory said. “It’s my job to worry.”

“Yeah, by like, two months,” Grace smiled. “It’s not fair for you to do everything. I want to help.”

Glory exhaled. “…I appreciate that, Grace. I do. But I can’t even find work, myself. There’s only a handful of places we’re consented to go. There’s the Breaking Houses,” Glory gritted her teeth. “but that’s not us. Not ever.”

Grace nodded glumly. The thought of spending twelve hours a day destroying religious icons to “appease” the Enemy’s dark gods left an awful taste in her mouth. Still…

Glory watched her hesitation. “What is it?” She asked.

“…There was an announcement,” Grace muttered. “While you were away. The Magistrate rode through town and said he was looking for the physically fit. He was looking to hire them for…” She fidgeted. “…entertainment.”

Glory’s face fell. “Oh, Grace…”

“Not- Not like that,” Grace said quickly. “No. There’s- There’s to be a tournament, held at the Magistrate’s manor. A martial arts tournament, or something like it. The participants will earn meal tokens, whether they win or lose.”

Glory shook her head ruefully. “Hawk’s Landing doesn’t train martial artists. The Magistrate’s hiring punching bags for his troops. It’s not enough that he’s beaten us. He wants to humiliate us.”

“It’s not just the Magistrate,” Grace continued. “His advisor was here, too. Jei-”

“Don’t say that name!” Glory snapped. “Don’t ever say that name in this house!”

Glory’s voice rang through the room and settled heavily in the air. She was on her feet, her hands balled into fists, so tight her knuckles were white. Grace shrank away from her, curled into the arm of the sofa. Glory released the breath she was holding, slowly unclenching her fingers. The mark of Malice twitched and burned on the inside of her arm.

“I’m sorry,” Grace said, fear bright in her eyes. “I’m sorry…”

“No, no,” Glory whispered, slowly easing herself back into her seat. “I… I’m sorry.”

Grace swallowed, continuing. “…The Apostle is looking for fighters to participate in the Magistrate’s tournament. You’re right- they do want to humiliate us. They want to laugh as starving farmers and desperate people get beaten half to death by trained soldiers and abominations just to earn their next meal.”

Grace took a shuddering breath, before leaning forward in her seat, taking Glory’s hands in her own.

“You’re right, most of us here in Hawk’s Landing aren’t trained fighters. But I am, and you are. We can fight. We can win! We can show these bastards that we still have some fire in us! We can show our people that these abominations can be fought! That they can be beaten!”

“What if they can’t, Grace?” Glory said, raising her voice. “What if it just can’t be done?”

“Then at least we would have tried! At least we would have gone down swinging!”

“Or you could die!” Glory said, rising to her feet. “You could die just like everyone else who raised a hand against them! Look at Master Yi!”

“Master Yi was a hero,” Grace said, rising and meeting Glory’s gaze. “He had the guts to fight them! He died for us!”

“And you’re just going to throw that away?” Glory snapped. “Master Yi gave you this life so you could live it! So you could survive!”

“As a slave of the Enemy? Keep my head down and obey?” Grace balked, incredulous. “I’d rather fight! I’m more than willing to die!”

“But I need you alive, Grace! I need you alive!”

Glory’s impassioned voice hung in the air like a fog. Grace stood, speechless. She crossed her arms, leaning back against a wall, staring down at the floor. Glory let her hands drop to her sides, unclenching her fists.

“I know you want to fight,” Glory began gently. “I know you hate them. Do you think I don’t? Do you think I don’t hate being branded as their property? Do you think I don’t grit my teeth and obey when their soldiers stop me in the street? But we have to, Grace. You know what will happen if we don’t.”

“We can’t let them win,” Grace said softly.

“They already won, Grace.”

“I don’t believe that,” Grace said, adamant. “And I know you don’t, either.”

Glory fell silent. Grace pushed off the wall and made her way to the door. Glory sighed. She pulled off her sweater and tossed it onto the couch, moving to join her. Grace looked up.

“…You can’t stop me from going,” Grace said.

“No,” Glory admitted. “But I can stop you from going alone.” She jerked her head towards the training dummy in their yard. “Come on. Let’s get some practice in while we still have the light.”

~*~

_“The next day, Grace and I piled into a flatbed truck along with all the other volunteers they could round up,” Glory said, sitting on her bunk in the Blair Institute as Petropolis’ near-constant rain pattered down her window._

_“I can’t believe it,” Alys said. “Face to face with the Dark Apostle himself. Did you know?”_

_“No,” Glory shook her head, She smoothed the slumbering Grace’s hair against her scalp, in order to calm her fingers, trembling from the memory. “Any servant of Malice is a monster, but.. if I had known…”_

_Glory swallowed hard._

_“…No. I didn’t know. And I will never forget.”_

~*~

The husk landed in a crumpled heap on the mat, gibbering and spitting in its foul language. Grace straightened and bowed, turning to survey her audience. Behind her, behind a shimmering orange power field, were her countrymen, faces pinched with a fleeting hope. She found Glory in the crowd and smiled.

Above her, two figures watched. One, the Magistrate, the former mayor of Hawk’s Landing, transformed by the power of the invaders. He sat limply in his chair, with blank eyes and dead limbs, whispering occasionally under his breath. There was another there with him- a rake-thin man with gaunt features, messy hair, and skin white as death, carrying a spear with a jet-black blade. He was Jei, the Dark Apostle, and far higher in the Enemy’s hierarchy than the puppet Magistrate could ever imagine.

“A woman,” Jei began, his voice echoed by some unknowable power. “A child, even. And yet you’ve performed far better than any of your townsmen.”

“Why don’t you come down here, huh?” Grace shouted, her blood up. “Then we’ll see how well I _perform_.”

“Eager, aren’t you?” Jei sniffed haughtily, pulling a misshapen hunk of metal out of his sleeve and flicking it down onto the mat. Grace reached out and caught the meal token before it hit the ground.

“You’ve earned your dinner tonight. Unless you’d like to raise the stakes.”

“I bet I could take three of you clowns at the same time,” Grace boasted. Jei shrugged, unimpressed.

“Prove it,” He said.

A trio of soldiers barreled towards Grace before Jei even finished speaking. Grace flipped over them, kicked away an incoming boot, then hit her wrongfooted foe with a flurry of punches to the ribs, sternum, throat, and nose. His skull cracked against the floor. One down, and she was barely even breaking a sweat.

Grace danced around her opponents, riding the rush of adrenaline and righteous anger flooding her veins. She kicked a soldier’s feet out from under him, catching his jaw with her knee on the way down. Bloody foam sprayed out from his mouth as he clamped down on his own tongue. She pulled him back up by the collar and shattered his nose with the heel of her palm. Her final opponent hesitated for a fraction of a second. She kicked him in the face with enough force to wrench his head around and snap his neck. He crumpled to the ground.

Grace smiled- a manic, hateful smile.

“Who’s next?” She hissed.

Her brash confidence was gone- replaced by a seething, vengeful hatred. The Magistrate watched her performance with numb, unfeeling eyes. Jei’s thin lips curled up in a smirk.

“Came here to work out some issues, did you?” Jei asked.

“Fuck you,” Grace spat. “You invade my home, murder my people, bleed my town dry, then call for ‘volunteers’ to be your punching bags. Well, I’m not just going to lie there and take it. I’m not going to sit around and wait for it to end!”

Grace flinched as Jei appeared before her in a cloud of black smoke. He swept his hand to the side, and the bodies of the three soldiers Grace had beaten were unceremoniously thrown in a pile beside the arena.

“You want to die on your feet, do you?” Jei sneered, handing his spear to a nearby soldier. “Hotheaded little brat. You’ll still be dead!”

Jei flew at her like a bullet, planting his foot in her chest. Grace flew back, crying out in pain as she smacked her head against the back wall. Her confidence evaporated in an instant, forced on the defensive as Jei raked Xs into the walls with nails transformed into talons, shrieking and screeching with sadistic glee.

Grace was cornered, and she had nowhere to go. Jei pummeled her with body blows, forcing the wind out of her lungs. He laughed in her face and she curled up into a ball, shielding herself with her arms from his frenzied onslaught. All the while, her friends and neighbors cried out, tearing their eyes away from the beating.

“Does it hurt?!” Jei screamed. “Well, don’t worry! I’ll MAKE IT ALL STOP!”

Jei took a few steps back and leaped into the air, his spear materializing in his hands from a plume of black smoke, the unholy blade flashing like fangs in the night-

“**No!**”

The sound of bells rang throughout the room, as a flash of golden light wrenched Jei’s spear from its target. The blade plunged into the door panel, sending sparks flying. The power field flickered and went out. Grace, expecting to die at any moment, looked up at the shadow that fell upon her.

Glory stood between her and Jei, her hands crackling with sparks of holy power.

“Get away from her, you **filth**,” Glory spat, before driving her fist into Jei’s chin.

Her knuckles cracked against him with a flash of golden light, sending him staggering away. Jei recovered, gliding gracefully to a halt. A thin wisp of smoke rose from the corner of his mouth, black ink dribbling down his chin.

“The _firebrand_…?” He laughed.

Glory lunged forward, getting in close, peeling away Jei’s defenses with palm parries and wrist locks. Jei’s mocking laughter continued, even as the holy power fueling Glory’s strikes rattled his bones and made his arms go numb.

“To think there are still believers, after the catastrophe we brought to you!” Jei laughed, catching a punch and wrenching Glory’s arm to the side. He formed a beak with four fingers and jabbed it into her ribs, smashing the air out of her lungs. He kicked her in the chest and she stumbled away, gasping.

“After your gods failed to save you! After the gods of Madness brought them to heel!”

Glory hopped over Jei’s sweeping kick, only for him to catch her and throw her over his shoulder. She landed, clamped her hand around his wrist and kicked him in the shoulder, yanking his arm out of its socket with a sickening crunch. Jei kicked her away, his left arm hanging uselessly at his side. The pain didn’t slow him down for an instant.

“After darkness fell over Corinth-” Jei grunted as Glory caught him in a pincer kick and wrestled him to the ground. “-even with the Breaking Houses demolishing the icons of your worthless faith-” Glory pulled Jei’s arm up and stamped on his shoulder, dislocating his other arm. “-even now, your little candle refuses to go out!”

_“All it takes is **one**!”_ Glory cried as she threw Jei against the wall, his arms limp and useless beside him. She struck him with a flurry of blows, striking eight points on his body in sequence, each one making his body convulse with white lightning. Jei snarled and raved, gnashing his teeth in vain, as Glory traced the holy sign on his torso.

Glory thrust her palm into Jei’s sternum, slamming him against the wall. A magic circle flashed and etched itself on the wall behind him. With a cry, drove the heel of her palm forward and completed the sign. Golden light exploded out of her hand and ripped Jei apart, his form melting into roils of black smoke that the light chased into the darkest corners of the room.

Glory yanked Jei’s spear out of the wall, flipped it in her hands, and threw it. It impaled the Magistrate and nailed him to the backboard of his chair, clutching at his throat, mouthing non-words. Glory stamped her foot on the ground, channeling divine power through her limbs. She leaped onto the balcony, the Magistrate’s guards still too astonished to react in time, her hands closing around the haft of Jei’s spear.

The shadows roiled in the corners of the room, as a cloud of black smoke formed and rose after her.

**“Hubris…!”** The cloud thundered in outrage.** “Do you think a body means _anything_ to someone like me?!”**

Glory pulled the spear free and let the Magistrate slide to the floor, her aura ablaze with the fire that consumed the martyrs. She drew a hand across the jet-black blade, the darkness falling away like a soot stain, hairline cracks forming and growing along its length.

Then, Glory whirled the spear around and smashed the cracked blade against the banister rail, shattering it into a hail of obsidian shards.

Power exploded out of the blade, along with the ghastly wailing of a thousand voices crying out in outrage and disbelief. Every husk, soldier, and abomination in Hawk’s Landing seized, screaming, pulled into a vortex that opened above the roof of the tournament space. The storm clouds of the Enemy coalesced into a huge roiling pillar of black smoke. The pillar condensed itself into a tiny, concentrated point- and then it exploded, in a blinding blast that lit the sky like a second sun. All of this happened in the span of a few seconds, leaving a spatial distortion in the sky above Hawk’s Landing that hissed as it healed, blurring like heat haze.

The mayor of Hawk’s Landing took his first real breath in months, exhaling a cloud of black smoke. He looked up, seeing Glory standing above him. Joy and relief flooded his features.

“…H-He’s gone,” He said, tears welling in his eyes. “He’s gone. Thank you. Thank…”

He laid his head down and died, his hands clutching a smouldering black hole in his neck. Glory watched him, her fingers still ringing from the divine power they held. She lifted her arm to the light, and watched the dreadful sigil of Malice drip off her arm like a cheap tattoo.

Glory dropped down from the balcony. The crowd- neighbors and friends- stared at her with reverent awe.

“You…” A man said, working his jaw to swallow his astonishment. “…You killed him. The Dark Apostle and his… his monsters. They can be beaten. It can be done.”

Glory ignored him, and she ignored the people who began applauding and singing her praises. Joy and celebration swept through her fellow townsmen- but she had eyes for one person and one person alone.

“Grace,” Glory whispered, kneeling by her side. She gingerly cupped her cheek. “Grace,” she insisted.

The last vestiges of holy power sparking around Glory’s fingertips passed into Grace like a cool breeze. She stirred, as if from a bad dream, as the worst of her wounds began to subside.

“What happened?” Grace murmured.

“We won,” Glory said softly. “Now I’m taking us home.”

Glory placed one arm around Grace’s shoulders, and another under knees, raising her up off the ground. Her fellow townsfolk parted to let her pass, raucous in their praises, eager to make their gratitude known.

As Glory walked out of the arena, Grace’s arms around her neck, she pushed the voices of her neighbors from her mind.

Did she save Hawk’s Landing? Maybe.

But she didn’t do it for them.

~*~

_“Amazing,” Alys said, her eyes glimmering._

_“It didn’t last,” Glory admitted soberly. “It couldn’t. Once the occupation forces in neighboring provinces found out, it was only a matter of time before one of them moved in to fill the gap. The Resistance brought us into hiding, offered us asylum. Asked if we wanted to fight. I refused. We weren’t soldiers. We were kids. Kids with a hobby, kids who got lucky.”_

_“How did you wind up at the Institute?”_

_“We caught a ride out with the Liberation Fleet,” Glory said. “Corinth had too many bad memories. We figured any place would be better than there. Petropolis isn’t much of a step up, but it’s still a step up. Mr. Blair offered to take us in. I didn’t know he was also an Exorcist, and that he’d wind up teaching me how to banish evil. That one was lucky. Sorta like-”_

_“Providence,” Alys offered._

_“Yeah,” Glory nodded._

_“You destroyed the host of an Aspect of Malice,” Alys said. “That’s no little thing. Anyone else, you’d have been made a Saint.”_

_“It wasn’t me,” Glory shrugged. “It was the will of the gods. I am simply honored to have served as their vessel. What I did in that arena, I did in their name. Mostly.”_

_Alys tilted her head. “Mostly?”_

_Glory bowed her head, smoothing the covers around Grace’s shoulders as she dozed off on Glory’s lap. Alys smiled knowingly._

_“Even with hands that can work miracles,” Alys smiled in wonder. “You do it for her.”_

_Glory grinned._

_“And I’d do it again.”_

~*~


End file.
